Sudan's army close to seizing Khartoum but faces significant challenges

Retaking capital could lead to partition or start of low-intensity war, experts say

Sudanese army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan visits the Flamingo Marine Base in Port Sudan in 2023. AFP

Sudan's army and its allies say that they are close to regaining full control of Khartoum, recording the most significant victory by far over the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since their war began nearly two years ago.

But Africa's third largest country faces challenges, including a possible break-up or a low intensity war that drags on for years in Darfur, analysts warn.

Retaking the whole of Khartoum will add to regions already under army control in the north, east and centre of the Afro-Arab nation, leaving the RSF with most of the western Darfur region – home to most of the paramilitary's fighters – as well as large areas of Kordofan to the south-west.

Emboldened by the recent battlefield gains in the capital and central Sudan, army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan has declared his intention to launch a national dialogue to chart the country's postwar future. He also said he planned to name a “war cabinet” of independent technocrats to “help the state achieve the remaining military operations needed to purge the whole of Sudan from the rebels”.

He has also pledged, in comments released by the military on Saturday, to continue the war, which marks its two-year anniversary on April 15, until the defeat of the RSF, repeating his dismissal of international calls for a truce, even just to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the most vulnerable among the 26 million Sudanese now facing acute hunger.

“Man does not live by food alone,” he said on Saturday.

Displaced women on a bus home in the city of Wad Madani in Al Jazira state after it was retaken by the Sudanese army. AFP

Analysts, however, said Gen Al Burhan may be overconfident given the daunting task ahead. He was also ignoring the possibility that the resource-rich nation may break up, with Darfur and parts of Kordofan possibly seceding, they said.

The war will continue in Darfur, social and political instability will persist in central Sudan and the Islamists will rise again

Sami Saeed,
Sudan expert

Sudan may also be looking at a protracted, low-intensity war in Darfur that, while further impoverishing the country, would leave residents of army-controlled regions mostly shielded.

“The war will continue in Darfur, social and political instability will persist in central Sudan and the Islamists will rise again,” said Sami Saeed, a prominent US-based Sudan expert. “On a parallel track, there will be timid peace negotiations that will seemingly never end.”

Darfur was devastated by civil war that broke out there in 2005 and continues to this day despite a 2020 peace accord between some of its rebel groups and the military. The war has killed about 300,000 and displaced about three million, according to UN figures.

Previously, the army had enlisted the help of the RSF to suppress the rebellion in Darfur by mostly ethnic Africans seeking an end to discrimination and the political and economic monopoly by the country's north. With the RSF now in control of all of Darfur's major cities except one – Al Fasher – the army and its allies face years of fighting to regain control of an area the size of France.

“All indications suggest that the war in Khartoum will end very soon, will take some more time in Kordofan and maybe as many as five years or longer in Darfur,” said retired Sudanese army general Galal Said.

Sudan's army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan. AFP

But Mr Saeed, also vice president of the pro-democracy African Network of Constitutional Lawyers, believes the army may never be able to regain full control of Darfur, where the RSF is an integral part of the social fabric among the region's Arab tribes.

The RSF has been seeking to cement support for its cause in Darfur by portraying the paramilitary as fighting to win equality for the “marginalised” people of the region.

Part of that discourse is also the RSF's persistent denial of involvement in war crimes committed against the region's ethnic Africans, according to the UN and international rights groups.

Faced with major battlefield setbacks in central Sudan and in the capital, the RSF is likely to concentrate its power in Darfur, according to Sudanese analyst Omar Abdel Aziz.

“The RSF extended itself too thin by foraying into central Sudan where it has no popular support to speak of,” said Mr Abdel Aziz. “Now that it's been thrown out as well as from most of the capital, it will make its stand in Darfur. It's a new reality that could very well lead to the break-up of Sudan.”

In contrast, the Sudanese army continues to show a chronic shortage of soldiers, relying heavily on volunteers, many of whom are members of now-disbanded militias loyal to the regime of former leader Omar Al Bashir, who was toppled in 2019 amid a popular uprising against his nearly 30-year rule.

The army's infantry is mostly drawn from Darfur and Kordofan, a fact that invited a level of distrust from its northern Sudanese commanders and allowed the RSF to appeal to their tribal and geographical associations, said Mr Saeed.

Gen Al Burhan on Saturday said he was opposed to any attempt to link the volunteers fighting alongside his troops to political parties, insisting that they represent the whole of Sudan and were fighting for their country.

People queue for water in Omdurman, the Sudanese capital's twin city, during battles between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. AFP

The army's heavy reliance on the mostly Islamist volunteers could pose its own challenges to Gen Al Burhan when the war is over. Already, he appears to have unilaterally rescinded the illegality of Al Bashir's National Conference party. On Saturday he said that the party blamed by the opposition for large-scale, political and economic corruption as well as atrocities against civilians in Darfur could contest postwar elections.

In moves widely interpreted to be sowing the seeds of division, the military-backed government now residing in Port Sudan on the Red Sea has recently issued new banknotes recognised only in areas under its control and allowed high school exams to proceed there and not in RSF-held areas.

“Steps like these could eventually tempt the RSF to create its own government, thus further destabilising the country and paving the way for a break-up,” said Mr Abdel Aziz. “There is no way to end this war except through negotiations. The army had never been able to militarily end armed revolts in Sudan.”

An example of that is the war between the south and north of Sudan that raged for more than 20 years before a peace agreement gave the mostly animist and Christian south the right to self determination that eventually led to its secession in 2011, robbing Sudan of a third of its territory and most of its oil wealth.

Al Shafie Ahmed contributed to this report.